Rumors of the delay of Siri's new features have been followed by official statements from Apple assuring that These developments are expected "in the next year"What's going on with Apple and the development of Siri?
Apple has delayed the release of advanced Siri features for iOS 18, including personal context and on-screen awareness, until next year. The lack of a unified backend to handle Siri requests, internal development issues, and concerns about the functionality of the features contributed to the delay. Siri is expected to be released in the coming months. A unified system for Siri launches with iOS 19, a considerable delay considering that they were expected for iOS 18.4, a version that is already available in Beta. Mark Gurman has obtained information that reveals the problems that Apple has encountered.
- Dual Siri Architecture: iOS 18 has two backend systems for Siri, one for legacy commands and one for advanced commands. That is, we have a legacy Siri and a modern Siri that works as one Siri, but this situation creates problems that will not be solved until there is a single, true Siri. This dual architecture complicates development and limits Siri's performance. Apple plans a unified backend system that will not arrive until iOS 19, so the advanced Siri features promised for iOS 18 will be delayed.
- Development challenges:Apple engineers are scrambling to fix bugs in new AI features, but they're running into major issues that they don't expect to have fixed until 2026, which could mean we might not have a fully-fledged, polished AI system until iOS 19.3 or later. Craig Federighi himself and other executives say that in their personal use, AI doesn't work as advertised.
- Uncertainty of leadership:At this point, employees themselves are questioning whether the current leadership of the AI group is adequate and whether changes are needed for Apple to keep up with the competition. They believe that under the current leadership, they will continue to fall behind the competition.
Artificial Intelligence seems to have caught Apple off guard, and despite the fact that they are putting all their effort into it, the rush to catch up with the competition is causing them many problems, so the decision taken is clear: Before launching something that doesn't work as it should, it's better to wait until it's well polished.. The experience with other similar situations must have been of some use; a situation similar to that of its Maps application with iOS 6 cannot be repeated, a fiasco that led to the dismissal of Richard Williamson.